Bitch was founded in 1996 in response to "post-feminism" by "freshly minted liberal arts graduates with crappy day jobs and a serious media jones." Bitch has been called "one of the best-written and edited girl-centric zines around" by Spin Magazine.

BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine was published in August 2006 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The 400 page book, with an introduction by comedian Margaret Cho, pulls together a collection of articles and criticisms from the first ten years of the magazine.